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Shéamus Bennett lists three ways to be sucessful on twitter in his post, The Secret To Twitter Success – Be Famous, Useful Or Interesting
- Be famous – A real life celebrity
- Be useful – An expert in some niche
- Be interesting – An entertainer
Since I don’t fit well into any of these three categories, I am a bit concerned. Isn’t there a fourth option?
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Luke, you may be right. This does seem too limiting. May I suggest a fourth one that might fit you: Be Purposeful. Use the tool to accomplish your purpose.
And who’s to say you can’t be all of ‘em? Seems silly to be limited to just one.
Luke, I think you are useful and interesting, for whatever that’s worth. What seems limiting is equating interesting with entertaining. There are many ways to be interesting – for example Tweeting links to fascinating posts.
4th option: Get off Twitter. What is the real value of it anyway?
Luke,
I agree with Brad. Your discussions, at least from what I have seen on this blog, are very useful and interesting.
You do not need a forth category – you already fit into two of the first three.
I say, I can’t be all of them.
I am not a celebrity so that is out. And, while I am an expert in a few fields such as heraldry, European history, and database design, those are not niches that I want to develop right now. I am entertaining, occasionally but that is rather sporadic.
But, if you are talking about people in general, that is certainly possible. I think Shéamus’ point was that only one is necessary.
I am curious, though, how do you accomplish your purpose except through one of these three ways?
Brad,
Thanks. I guess what I was thinking about is the fact that I cannot brand myself as the handy tech support guy who can help with just about any tech question, if my goal is to have more discussions about freedom and a better life for the people of China. I will always be helping people with computers but I cannot make that my niche.
I am not an expert on China yet. I work for an expert, but I still have a lot to learn before I can be useful in the areas I am most interested in. So, it might just be a stage of life/career thing, that just happens when you are in transition.
Being interesting is definitely a course I try to pursue but when I looked at how high Shéamus set the bar for interesting I had to wonder if there was something that might be a better fit.
You are right that being entertaining is not the only way to be interesting. Recognizing other peoples interests and conversing with them about those interests is another way – one that leads to stronger long term relationships. Which is my primary interest in twitter. I am a natural at publishing but am still learning conversation.
Paul,
What is the value of a phone, letter, email, or any other form of communication/media?
The value of any media is not the media itself. It is the people you are able to access through that media, and how easily and fully you can communicate with them.
I have met some really awesome people through Twitter, like Brad and Robert. I am not positive we meet first on Twitter, but that has definitely strengthened the relationship.
You could argue that Brad and Robert are not interested in China and therefore the relationships have no business value, but I have learned a lot about communication from them, and those lessons help me with my work.
Andrew,
Thanks. It would not be fair to expect a separate category just for me. It just seemed like maybe there was a Neptune out there. The orbit looked a bit unusual.